


Shallow end

by knesk



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Lifeguards, Angst, Anxiety Attacks, Bad Flirting, First Meetings, First Times, M/M, Rating will change, Slow Burn, Social Anxiety, Summer, Swimming Pools, practically no volleyball
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-06
Updated: 2016-02-06
Packaged: 2018-04-30 06:48:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5154200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/knesk/pseuds/knesk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When the hottest summer in a decade rolls around, Kenma is far from ready to learn how to swim. He's much more content to sit and sulk in the shallow end of the pool, but Kuroo isn't about to let him do that in peace.</p><p>AU where everything is the same except Kenma and Kuroo didn't meet as kids, and so Kenma never joined the volleyball team. Basically self indulgent summertime romance. Other pairings...might show up..?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. One Foot In

                While the muggy heat of June isn’t particularly overpowering—not the way the blazing warmth of August is—it still exists, and it is still heat, and so it is still mildly awful. Kenma breathes it in while he walks home, the grossly humid air sitting uncomfortably in his lungs, making him feel leaden and tired as he trudges on. He can feel sweat in his hair, the longer blond parts of it sticking to the perimeter of his face, the back of it clinging to his neck. It’s an awful sensation, and if his hands were free he would certainly run them through his hair and sullenly wipe the moisture away, but his hands are full, so he doesn’t. Instead, he idly swings the plastic grocery bags that he’s holding and resolves to visit the community pool after he returns home.

                It’s common for Kenma to frequent the pool in the summer; there’s one conveniently in the middle of his neighborhood, a nice big square thing with a white fence and a volunteer lifeguard. Because of its status as a free community amenity with constant supervision, the other patrons there are generally younger kids with too much time on their hands and without enough money to do anything substantial, but Kenma has seen classmates and schoolmates on occasion as well. He’d normally avoid places so crowded with needlessly noisy people his age and younger, but Kenma’s been going to this particular pool consistently enough throughout the years that everyone knows he’s better left alone, and because of it he can mostly just block out the noise of the world while he’s there. The lifeguard even has seemed to learn that Kenma stays almost exclusively in the shallow end and doesn’t need to be bothered or worried about, despite looking mostly asleep for practically the entire duration of his visits. It’s a strange kind of privacy that he’s been granted—as if the pool is a safe haven where he can be around people without actually interacting with them. And that’s really all he wants when he goes out, anyway.

                He likes to stand in the shallow end, likes to lean over the edge of it so he can cross his arms on the hot pavement and support his weight there. Sometimes he lets his legs kick out behind him while his torso floats somewhere just under the surface of the water. He’ll rest his head on his arms and close his eyes, the heat of the summer sun beating over the black roots of his hair and over the pink skin of his shoulders while the rest of his body is chilled and weightless, and he’ll just stay there, motionless. He can pass hours like that, floating at the edge of the shallow end, the sunlight keeping him sleepy and warm. He’s always cognizant enough to stay awake, but he’s always relaxed enough to feel like he’s on the edge of sleep, and it’s nice. It feels the way summertime should feel—sleepy and warm and generally content, not overheated or heavy or exhausted.

                When he gets home he deposits the groceries on the counter, bothering only to put away what needs to be refrigerated before stripping out of his suffocating clothes and replacing them with swim trunks and a light tee. He rolls a towel and slings it over his shoulder before heading out again, locking the door behind him and stretching up to leave the key on top of the door frame.

                He keeps his hands fisted in the pockets of his shorts while he walks, his eyelids drooping from the strain of the heat, his bare feet tender against the hot sidewalks. There’s a welcoming gap in the white fence to the pool, the gate unlatched and open, the water visible beyond it and beckoning inward. As he steps through he looks around, taking in the elementary schoolers floating around and splashing each other, making more noise than he cares to hear, and as his feet drag his gaze catches on the lifeguard. He’s sitting on his special lifeguard chair, looking bored and much too warm in his red shorts and black t-shirt, his black hair a tangible mess that falls over one eye and sticks up over everything else. He has his chin resting in his hand and he looks far too apathetic for someone watching over twenty swimming children. He is not the lifeguard that Kenma is used to seeing.

                The lifeguard Kenma knows is shorter with a bit of muscled bulk, his hair dark and cropped and tousled. The lifeguard Kenma is looking at is tall and chiseled, with hair that would be long enough to frame his face if it laid flat. There’s a vague recognition in the back of Kenma’s mind, like he’s seen the guy around before, but he can’t really place why, and he doesn’t really care anyway. He’s upset that the regular lifeguard isn’t there, because the regular lifeguard knows that Kenma should be left alone, and Kenma likes it when people know to leave him alone. The whole reason he continues to use the community pool is because he knows he’ll be left alone. He considers leaving, but fears that might draw more attention than necessary, so instead he finds an empty chair and slings his towel over it. He peels off his shirt and deposits it on the chair with the towel, and then steps rather timidly into the pool.

                It’s unpleasantly cool, but once his torso is submerged he grows accustomed to it and wades further in. His favorite perch is a spot just on the precipice of the deep end, where the pool bottom starts to slope and gain depth, and he waddles over to it with heavy, waterlogged steps. There on the slope he can stand comfortably with his neck above water, his arms folded over the edge, his weight pulling at his shoulders when he decides to let his legs float free. It’s just as nice as it always is, with the sun pouring over his face and the water clinging to his legs, the uneven distribution of temperature strangely pleasant. He sits there for an hour or so, soaking everything in, his thoughts trailing this way and that as he lets time pass. He’s content to stay there for quite a while, but someone nudges at his arm with their foot, silently prompting him to acknowledge their presence, and he is jarred out of his trance.

                When he peels his eyes open and looks up, Kenma can see the looming silhouette of the new lifeguard standing before him, his head holding the illusion of a luminescent halo because of its perfect position blocking the sun. He seems impossibly tall standing there, a hand lazily hooked on his hip, his hair flipping into the sun. Kenma doesn’t say anything to him, but squints his eyes against the lack of light.

                The new lifeguard nods his head down at Kenma and says, “If you fall asleep you’re gonna slip in and drown.” His tone is light, without any sort of accusation, and more than anything he sounds weary. Kenma can’t see his face, but his eyebrows are raised up with something like concern.

                All Kenma says is, “I’m not asleep.”

                 The guy laughs a little—an airy sound, not particularly insincere, but not particularly genuine, either—and he plops down next to Kenma, his legs hanging in the water. “Sure, _now_ you’re not,” he chides, leaning back onto his flat palms. He kicks his legs against the water, and as he does it moves against Kenma in waves, flowing against his ribs and his back.

                His voice permanently quiet, Kenma tells him, “I do this a lot, you don’t have to worry about me. I’m not gonna drown in the shallow end, anyway.”

                The guy raises an eyebrow. His voice is rather flat—echoing Kenma’s lack of inflection—but his words are cheeky. “What about the deep end,” he says.

                Kenma gives him a look—disgruntled, impatient, almost indignant. “I’m not in the deep end,” he grumbles. He lets his gaze slip out in front of him and settle on the empty space there. He’d been craning his neck to look at the new lifeguard, to take in the color of his eyes and the strange flip of his hair, but the view isn’t worth the crick in his neck, so instead he stares at the chairs, gaze caught on nothing in particular. He feels awkward there, glaring out at the pavement, teeth clenched and grinding like a poorly restrained child while the new lifeguard continues to gaily kick his legs out, his arms and cheeks burning from the sun’s attention. He feels like he shouldn’t be so suddenly aggravated by simple socialization, but he can’t change such a visceral reaction.

There’s a silence between them, and Kenma is surprised that the guy doesn’t try to have the last word. He doesn’t want to ponder over that, though, so he asks, “What happened to the regular lifeguard?”

                Humming a little, the new guy says, “Who, Sarukui? He messed up his leg last week, so he’s gotta chill out and let it heal. He’ll be back in a month or so. I’m here in the meantime.” Almost like an afterthought, he raises a hand and crosses it over his body, offering it out to Kenma to be shaken. He says, “Call me Kuroo.”

                Though it takes a bit of uncomfortable maneuvering, Kenma lifts his hand to bleakly shake Kuroo’s. He has a tight and confident grip over Kenma, giving his small hand one fluid shake before releasing it, and the feeling—a strangely comfortable confinement—lingers for a moment. Kenma is quick to reposition himself with his arms crossed and his head sullenly propped against their overlap, not caring if his voice is strained because of it.

                “Kenma Kozume,” he says, blandly.

                Kuroo is leaning on his hands again, posture easy and laid back, his head lolled over to the side so he can keep his eyes on Kenma. He has a sort of lingering smile pulling at his lips and Kenma eyes it warily, unsure what has brought it on, because when he first saw him Kuroo had his head in his hand, and he looked generally disinterested in being awake and in public. There’s sort of a glow to him now, though, and it isn’t from any sort of strategic blocking of the sun; his smile, quiet as it is, just has an energy to it—a radiance, almost. But when he hears Kenma’s name, the grin grows a fraction, and Kenma shrinks, because he can feel in his bones that he’s not going to like whatever that means. He’s watched people without socializing with them long enough to know that something important shifted in Kuroo’s demeanor, slight as it might have been.

                Through the smile, Kuroo asks, “You come here often, Kenma Kozume?”

                He has an eyebrow lifted provocatively, and his grin has twisted into a cheeky smirk, playful and teasing and full of a completely different sort of energy than what it had a moment ago. Kenma lets his expression sour, and as his feet float vaguely near the bottom of the pool he can feel a ball of warbled anxiety sit in his throat, unease starting to line his stomach. He doesn’t want this attention, and he’s uncomfortable and angry that he has to deal with it. He gnashes his teeth together for a moment, looks pointedly at an unsteady chair, and after having satisfactorily composed himself, says, “I live nearby, so.”

                Kuroo’s face somehow melts into more of a smile and his voice is low and velvety when he returns, “Does that mean I’ll be seeing more of you? Say, this time tomorrow?”

                It takes Kenma a moment to really process the sentence and he blinks blankly at Kuroo while the gears in his head try to turn. He’d expected Kuroo to deflate, to slink away with his tails between his legs because Kenma is very much not flirting back, but that didn’t happen. Kuroo is more boisterous yet, almost as if he’s spurred on by Kenma’s lack of interest in him, and Kenma doesn’t know what to do or how to react. His shoulders feel like they’re burning against the light of the sun, his feet frozen at the bottom of the pool. His hands grow sweaty and numb under his chin. He legitimately can’t tell how serious Kuroo’s request is—if this flirtation is some kind of joke, or if there’s a level of genuine romantic interest there—and he doesn’t know what he can do to deter these advances. It makes the ball in his throat expand and his vision is swimming a little because of how hard he’s trying to stay collected. He swallows against nothing, throat catching against his dry mouth.

                Unsure what else to say, Kenma gripes, “Probably not. ‘Depends on how hot it is.”

                Kuroo’s mouth splits to show his pearly teeth and Kenma knows he’s made a mistake.

                Almost immediately, Kuroo retorts, “It’ll be a whole lot hotter if you’re here with me.”

                Panic clogs Kenma’s head and for a minute he’s sure he’s gone blind, some kind of sensory overload having blocked out his eyesight. Without even registering the words, he announces, “I’m leaving.”

                And he does. Slowly. He isn’t about to hoist himself up onto the pavement next to Kuroo, so he turns and wades through to water to the steps leading out of the pool, letting the water resistance push against his legs and abdomen while his hands skate overtop. He can breathe easier while he does this, feels like he has sort of a barrier between him and Kuroo, and though he regains the ability to think in full sentences there’s still panic pressing against the forefront of his mind, keeping him from doing or thinking of anything except escape. While he works his way to the stairs, Kuroo walks along the edge of the pool, following him with small steps. Kenma doesn’t look at him, but knows that he is there.

                His eyebrows are scrunched together and he’s rubbing the back of his neck, saying things like, “Hey—don’t leave, I didn’t mean anything by it, I just—okay, that’s…definitely not true. But—you don’t have to leave—come on. I’m sorry.”

                Kenma looks away from Kuroo as he climbs the steps out of the pool, mumbles, “Just—go away,” and he gathers his things from the chair he’d left them at. When he turns around, Kuroo is in front of him, looking genuinely apologetic with one hand on his neck, the other idly fingering the hem of his shorts.

                “Seriously, I’m sorry. You don’t have to go, I’ll leave you alone.”

                Kenma doesn’t acknowledge the apology. His whole body feels heavy. His torso and his legs are numb from the water and everything else stings from sunburn, and he’s just so tired. He doesn’t want to be around people anymore. He doesn’t want to be around Kuroo anymore. He wants to go home, to bury his face in his PSP and his body in blankets, to forget that _the world_ exists and _people_ exist. As he shoulders past Kuroo and walks out toward the pool’s gate, Kuroo lets his head fall back with a grumbling sigh. He mumbles a few explicative vulgarities to himself before sulking back over to his special lifeguard chair to apathetically loom over twenty swimming children.

                The only way he can think to describe how he feels is with the word _shame_. He’s blatantly disappointed in himself. He pinches the bridge of his nose, hisses and the way his skin feels like its burning, and then self depreciatively tells himself he probably deserves that. He had known Kenma wasn’t interested. Anyone could’ve looked at Kenma and known he wasn’t interested. But Kuroo pressed him. Kenma was uncomfortable, and Kuroo ignored it. And Kuroo is ashamed for that.

                When he plops down against the unrelenting wood of his chair, he blindly slides his hand over the arm rest, searching for his sunbaked phone with a charming lack of dexterity. He peels his eyes open when he finds it and swipes his thumb over the lock screen, lamenting his lack of notifications before opening up the messages app and composing a text to Bokuto. A heavy frown pulls at his mouth and for a moment he wants to stop existing, wants to stop having to remember what had just happened, wants to stop having to feel so _shitty_. He doesn’t even want to talk to Bokuto—he sort of just wants to wallow in his own misery—but Bokuto’s indirectly the reason Kuroo is currently a lifeguard, so he’s the one who gets to deal with Kuroo’s angst. Eyes heavy, he types the out the message.

 

Outgoing message to: K Bokuto

(755) 893 5554 – call – message options

>>when can sarukui play again

 

                He’s referencing the fact that Sarukui’s leg injury is keeping him from playing volleyball on Bokuto’s team, but he doesn’t really care much about that. He just wants him to be well enough to take back the lifeguarding position, because Kuroo is obviously doing a shit job at it, and he’s pretty disenchanted by the experience. He doesn’t want to explain that to Bokuto, though. Just thinking about explaining that to Bokuto makes the negativity in his gut swirl around nauseatingly, makes his palms sweat and his head ache. It’d be one thing if Kenma had just rejected Kuroo and walked away—that’d happened to him before, and when he told Bokuto they laughed about it together, and it ended up being a grand old time and a something of a pleasant memory—but there was a key difference in what had happened today. Kenma didn’t reject him outright. He was too unsure of what was happening to do that, and so when he walked away, it wasn’t just from disinterest. It was from fear. 

                Kuroo rubs at his brow with a heavy hand, and his phone buzzes while he reprimands himself. He scowls at the screen as he swipes the lock mechanism open, and the response he receives only serves to make him feel worse.

 

Incoming message from: K Bokuto

(755) 893 5554 – call – message options

>>as soon as he can stand w/o crying. why ?

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That sure did end abruptly, didn't it?!
> 
> I can't promise regular updates, but this is tentatively planned out for eight or so chapters, and I'm gonna try to stick to that. And the rating will definitely change, but this is going to be sort of a slow burn, so bear with me! I love long, drawn out romance. Find me on tumblr @asleepfornow !


	2. Skimming the Surface

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in this chapter there's a heat wave hitting tokyo and everyone is miserable. yesterday there was an ice storm where i live, and it's about 38°F/3°C

                The following day is one of the hottest on record, rivaled only by temperatures marked during an outrageous heat wave that devastated Kanto decades ago. All Kenma can do to combat it is lay dejectedly on the tiled floor of their kitchen, limbs sprawled star fish style, three oscillating fans pushing his hair around in successive intervals while his chest aches under the pressure of hot air. The television is on in another room and Kenma can hear the station filter in through the doorway, the lilting tones of the news anchor relaying the same bundle of information that’s been looping for the past three hours. Record temperatures, dehydration, heat stroke. Remain inside, keep cool, avoid heavy labor. Kenma slides his eyes shut and feels himself burn.

                The doorknob rattles from somewhere behind him and he lets his eyes crack back open in greeting. It’s his father, a small pile of mail cradled in his elbow, a couple bags of ice clacking together against his leg. He looks at Kenma, nearly naked on the floor, and he seems surprised.

                “Oh, you’re still here?” He says. While turning to drop the mail, he adds, “I figured you’d be at the pool, considering the heat.”

                Kenma turns his gaze, mumbles, “I’m avoiding it.”

                His dad seems to accept this as a reasonable answer and hums a bit before hauling the ice off to the garage. When he returns a moment later, he sits himself on the ground next to Kenma and softly says, “Is that something you’d like to talk about, or should I start sorting the mail?”

                Kenma takes a minute to consider that, to work apart what he could tell his father and what he doesn’t want to share with anyone. There’s a vague nausea sitting in his gut from the humidity and probably some degree of dehydration, but it starts to grow a little as he thinks about what happened yesterday. He isn’t even really thinking about what happened, not in any kind of specific, episodic way; there’s just a sort of feeling pressed into him based on the experience, a sort of sickness that’s clouding his head and encompassing the way yesterday was. It’s not overwhelming, but it’s distracting, and it’s uncomfortable, and Kenma doesn’t like it. The silence between him and his father has been stretching on as he lets himself drown in it, and after it seems to be too much, he mumbles, “There’s a different lifeguard at the pool.”

                His dad makes a noise of understanding, a quick syllable from the back of his throat, and then he’s quiet for a moment. Their conversations almost always have a rhythm like that, with cycles of humming, silence, and then substance. That’s something they’ve always understood about each other; they’re both careful people, and they need time to think before they can get out just the right turn of phrase, and there’s nothing wrong with that so long as both parties understand.

                After his customary tick of thought, Dad says, “Does that frighten you? That it’s someone new?”

                Though it takes an annoying amount of effort, Kenma lets out a sigh and rolls his head over to face away from his father. “Not on its own,” he admits, his voice strangely clear. “But he talked to me yesterday, and I don’t like that.”

                “Is that a rational sort of reaction, because he said something he shouldn’t have, or are you just worried he’ll try to talk to you again while you’d rather be left alone?”

                Something about that question makes the unease inside of Kenma clench up and freeze, and he has to resist the urge to curl up on his side with his hands tangled in his hair. He takes a moment to try to breath, and he mashes his palms into his eye sockets to try and further ground himself. His voice is embarrassingly strained when he says, “Both.”

                If Kenma wasn’t so obviously torn up his father might have laughed at that response, but as it is he’s just a little disheartened. He sighs, long and heavy, before softly saying, “I know this advice isn’t going to be something you want to hear, and I know it’s a course of action that will be difficult for you to think of trying, but it’s all I can think to tell you.” There’s a silence while he lets Kenma take that apart, and he’s startled to see his son actually looking up at him, the eye contact mildly unsettling. He takes a breath before continuing. “If you want to go back, you could try to talk to him yourself.” He pulls a hand back to scratch sheepishly at his scalp and goes on, saying, “It would be sort of terrifying for you to do, I know, but that way there’s no risk of him unexpectedly approaching you, and he may listen if you tell him to leave you alone.”

                His instinct is to roll onto his side and say _I don’t want to do that_ but Kenma ignores it, takes a minute to think about that as an actual viable option. It sort of makes him want to throw up, but at the same time he can see how it may be a good idea. He can feel himself frown as he says, “Maybe.”

                His dad pats him on the shoulder a little, then stands. “Just think about it. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to.”

                Kenma watches him walk out of the kitchen, and then rolls onto his side and hides his face in the crook of his elbow. The heat is making everything so much worse for him. It’s hard to breath and he can’t really feel his limbs the way he should be able to and the air is so thick it’s making it hard to think. He lays there and sweats into his arm and he kind of thinks he might die if he doesn’t cool off, if he can’t shake this wave of anxiety, if he can’t just _feel better._ Yesterday had been hot, but not like this. He’d never been so uncomfortable in his life.

                It takes a lot of resolve to make a decision and move from his safe haven on the kitchen floor. It takes a lot of resolve, and it takes two hours of going back and forth while feeling like puking all over the linoleum. But Kenma stands up, and he walks into the living room, and he tells his father, “…I guess I’m gonna go.”

                His dad smiles sweetly, his crinkling eyes looking genuinely happy and proud. “Alright then,” he says.

 

             ʕ •ᴥ• ʔ                       

 

                The pool, understandably, is packed. Kenma pulls in a deep breath as he approaches the gate, readies himself for the absolute worst, and balls his clammy hands into tight fists. He isn’t taking his shirt off today—for an array of reasons that he can’t really put words to, including a simple lack of space as far as chairs go—and so he just marches directly over to the pool, a warbled sense of purpose driving him on. He’s about halfway to the edge when he looks up directly into Kuroo’s burning gaze. He’s sitting at that chair of his, his shirt off and his shorts soaked, and he only holds Kenma’s stare for a moment. Almost as soon as he realizes who he’s looking at, he turns away, brings a hand up to his hair, looks just as uncomfortable as Kenma always feels. Kenma stands there looking at him for a moment, and he remembers his father’s advice, and that sort of makes his stomach flip in a terrible way. He feels like he needs to do something, though; ignoring Kuroo flat out makes him cringe with guilt that he can’t understand, and the idea of turning back and going home makes him feel even worse.

                He doesn’t let himself think about what he’s doing, because if he did he would probably turn back immediately, but he shuffles over towards Kuroo’s perch with a heavy step and a heavy heart and he tries to ignore the fact that he’s started to hold his breath at some point. He’s not sure if the fact that Kuroo is still purposefully not looking at him makes him feel better or worse, but he’s reached the chair before he can decide, and he knows that Kuroo sees him, but he’s still looking away with his head turned to the right as far as it can go, and that probably means _something_ but Kenma has no idea _what._

                Pushing his fingernails into the seams in his hands, Kenma swallows, then mumbles, “Hi.”

                The way Kuroo turns his head to catch Kenma’s gaze is slow and sheepish, and it’s ducked low like a kid who’s been caught doing something wrong. Kenma doesn’t like that face on Kuroo, and he frowns.

“Uh, hi,” Kuroo says. There’s little trace of the smooth flirtation that had encompassed him yesterday, and Kenma is perplexed to the point that he’s given up trying to understand.

                There’s a moment of tense eye contact and Kenma really doesn’t know what to say and Kuroo might be blushing or it might be the sun, but he looks like he’s in pain, and it’s probably the worst four seconds of Kenma’s life. He grinds his teeth a little and tries to figure out what he’s supposed to do in this situation.

                Before Kenma can even relax his jaw, though, Kuroo opens his mouth, and his voice is very soft and bashful when he says, “I want to apologize.”

                They blink at each other for a while, and then Kenma furrows his eyebrows, and Kuroo wipes a hand exasperatedly over his brow. Somehow, this tick of silence isn’t so thoroughly and overwhelmingly unpleasant. It feels like a chord in Kenma’s chest has loosened a bit, like a little ounce of stress has dripped out of his ears. His throat makes a small noise while he lets out another breath he hadn’t realized he was holding.

                “I’m not really expecting you to forgive me,” Kuroo adds, his head twitching over to the right again, his eyes sliding away from Kenma’s. “I just wanted to give you an honest apology. I was kind of an ass yesterday, and I’m not usually that kind of guy. I just got caught up in trying to—trying to, uh, _court you,_ I guess—and I really should’ve backed off. I’m sorry that I didn’t. If you want to hang around, I won’t bother you anymore.”

                Kenma looks at him blankly, then murmurs, “…Thanks,” and turns away.

                Kuroo lets his eyes flutter shut and he pushes out a long sigh, his shoulders aching as tension leaks out of them. Maybe it’s okay, now. Maybe he doesn’t need to keep feeling like he’s rotting from the core, like the sweat he’s covered in is some permanent layer of muck. Maybe Kenma’s even forgiven him, even if he didn’t say it. It’s still grossly hot, but suddenly Kuroo’s not even uncomfortable. He feels good. His body is radiant in the sun, pulling the warmth into his limbs and basking in it. The sting of his sunburn is a nice kind of burn, tingling over his nose and shoulders. And as much as he cares whether or not Kenma actually forgives him, he’s honestly just happy to have apologized. It was killing him to let Kenma go on thinking that that was…. _normal behavior_. That Kuroo was just some playboy who got his thrills talking up quiet underclassmen. He can actually focus a little now that he’s redeemed himself a bit.

                He sticks to his promise, and he leaves Kenma alone. It’s surprisingly easy to do; he just stays in his chair all day, let’s his focus float around the kids that really are quite terrible at swimming and really do need to be focused on, and he ignores the way his stomach lurches pleasantly when he happens to see Kenma basically asleep at the edge of the shallow end. He had watched Kenma walk away from him and a weird fondness had swelled in the pit of his stomach, the same feeling that’d propelled him to introduce himself the day before. It’s a sort of feeling he’s felt before, and it’s a sort of feeling he’s ignored before, but something about it makes Kuroo worry. He really doesn’t want to cause Kenma any more stress—he isn’t sure that either of them could handle that—but he can feel the attraction in his bones and it’s hard to go against feelings that intrinsically make you smile big and dopey. He tries to be discreet about it while he shifts his gaze a little, tries to hold it somewhere beyond Kenma while still keeping him close to the center of his view, and he shouldn’t be but he’s sort of embarrassed with himself. It’s been a long time since he was so interested in someone.

                Kenma’s sat the same way he was yesterday, his arms crossed over the pavement while his legs kick out behind him, but his head is turned away from Kuroo while it rests over his forearms. Kuroo isn’t sure if it’s because that’s physically more comfortable, or because that’s mentally more comfortable, and the thought sort of makes him wheeze. There’s a tangible twinge in his chest, but he breaths in hot air and reminds himself that he apologized, and it was an honest apology, and so he doesn’t need to feel awful anymore. He pulls his eyes back over to the kids that’re paddling around the deep end, and he keeps his focus there.

                The sun descends, and it stops being so suffocatingly hot, and most of the kids have left or are leaving. Kuroo should leave, too; he’s really only ‘on duty’ for four or so hours a day, and he’s been sitting around for something like seven, but he likes the atmosphere—the dwindling daylight giving command to the moon and stars while kids float around, too tired to cause trouble like they had all day. He leans back against his chair and the wood is uncomfortably cool against him, but it’s a welcome feeling. His limbs are aching in a way that’s hard to notice while soaking in humidity, but now that it’s dark and warm and not literally deathly hot, his body is starting to hurt. His shoulders are tight and his calves are sore in a way that makes him doubt he can actually stand, and he takes a minute to move his neck around and stretch his arms. While he does, he can’t help noticing Kenma stand up and pull off his shirt, wring the water out of it, and then put it back on.

                They make eye contact for a second, and it’s so tense that Kuroo can feel his heart starting to jump into his throat. For the first time in a long time, he doesn’t know what to do.

                And then, like an idiot, his face on auto pilot, he pulls a devilish grin and ducks his chin in towards his chest in a way that probably looks _really menacing._

                From across the pool, Kenma’s eyes narrow in a way that looks defiant instead of terrified, and then he turns and walks away, and Kuroo is suddenly really very warm. He clenches his jaw while he watches him leave, and he rests a hand on his sternum, cupping his neck, his pulse pounding under his palm.

                While Kenma walks home, he feels alright. He feels like maybe everything is actually okay, and that kind of lightness is enough to lift the corners of his mouth into a silent smile. His mind runs in loops, reassuring himself that Kuroo apologized to him, and he said he would leave him alone, and then he _did_ leave him alone, and people don’t usually mean it when they say that kind of stuff, but apparently, Kuroo did really mean it. Kenma thinks maybe Kuroo is the kind of person he can trust, but that isn’t something he can just decide in a day, so he lets that thought sit in the very back of his mind, rolling around with his other hopes and doubts. When he opens the door to his house, there’s still a faint smile pulling on his mouth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter actually got cut in half because I wanted to get something posted sooner rather than later, and because I thought this was a better stopping point than the original cut off. (which means it'll prooobably be longer than eight chapters.....but...whatever). I hope it doesn't seem too awkward this way?
> 
> Next chapter sees them....actually interacting like peers, instead of this weird back and forth thing they've got going on. so look forward to that.


	3. Both Feet, Now

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this was written a lot faster than the other two chapters, and consequently, not edited quite as heavily. sorry if there are mistakes (ˊ̥̥̥̥̥ ³ ˋ̥̥̥̥̥)

                While temperatures fail to rise any higher than their record breaking peak, the heat wave does persist, and there’s a two week period of ninety degree weather that manages to be the only thing that anyone wants to talk about. Kenma has more than memorized the PSA that cuts into the news every two hours to remind everyone they must stay hydrated, and he blandly recites the message in time with the announcer whenever it plays. After four days of it, he takes to laying in the garage instead of the kitchen, simply so that he might not have to hear the TV remind him that it’s so hot he might actually literally die. He is very aware of how hot it is without the pleasant tones of a news anchor constantly reminding him. Not having air conditioning makes it impossible to ignore how hot it is. And because there is nothing else he could possibly do during his dangerously hot summer break, Kenma takes to laying in the garage for a good few hours, and then visiting the pool. Every day.

                The entire neighborhood joins him in the latter.

                If he’s honest with himself, it doesn’t really bother him. Though he does get splashed fairly frequently, he’s otherwise left alone, and it’s just more of the same. Kuroo keeps to his promise and leaves him alone, too, generally sulking in his big white lifeguard chair while Kenma ignores him, and after a while Kenma sort of forgets that he ever even replaced Sarukui. A contentedness settles in the bottom of his stomach while he stands on the edge of the shallow end every day, and even though he actually sweats through his hair while standing there, he feels good. His world has settled back into what it’s always been, and it has returned to something he knows he can handle. Standing there feeling like that almost puts him to sleep.

                Though every day generally passes the same as the last, there’s one particularly hot afternoon about a week after Kenma and Kuroo’s first encounter that has the two of them sweating bullets and breathing heavy. After an hour of stagnation, Kuroo seems to have gotten fed up with it. He stands from his chair and wobbles over to the poolside, sweat shining against his entire body, his position a good distance away from Kenma, and at first, he just sits down there and sticks his feet in. He sighs against the feeling, wiping a fountain of sweat from his brow with his forearm before fluffing out his hair, and then he kicks his legs out a little bit and rubs at his eyes. Kenma flicks his gaze over as Kuroo leans back on his hands and breaths deep, and he’s suddenly jarringly reminded of when they first met. His stomach sours a bit at that thought, but he doesn’t panic; he takes a breath in through his nose and lets the feeling pass. And it does. He closes his eyes and breaths in pure humidity, and then lets himself look over at Kuroo again.

                By now, enough time has passed that Kenma feels like he really understands everything that has happened between them. He doesn’t totally get what inspired Kuroo’s half of their first conversation, but he gets everything else. He understands the honesty behind Kuroo’s apology, and he understands that everything Kuroo has done following it stands only to make him more trustworthy. If he really presses himself, he finds that he’s forgiven him.

                He lets his feet float out behind him and dips a hand into the water so that he can wipe it on his suntanned cheeks, and as a slight breeze freezes against that moisture Kenma realizes he’s just a little bit disappointed. Something about Kuroo sticks out to him, marks him as different but not necessarily bad, and Kenma almost wishes he would go back on his word so that he might find out what it is about him that subconsciously stands out so much.

                After sitting for a while, Kuroo straightens out his legs and slips all the way into the pool. His body dunks underneath its surface with a mild splash before haphazardly breaching it again, and there’s a sort of grace to the way he smoothly begins to tread water there. He lets his arms float limply while his legs pump back and forth under him, and it’s enough to keep his neck dry, the movement surprisingly contained enough to keep the surrounding waters calm. His chest displaces with his even breathing, and he just stays there for a while, looking around at everyone. His waterlogged hair is plastered flatly against his face and neck, wrapping around his jaw and sticking in his eyelashes, and it looks so much different than Kenma’s ever seen it that when he catches a glance, he actually laughs a bit. Kuroo apparently hears the noise, and looks over to him with a raised eyebrow.

                He offers a conservative smile and raises a hand in greeting, and Kenma wiggles his fingers in return. There’s a fraction of growth in Kuroo’s grin that adds a sense of genuine happiness, and Kenma raises his eyebrows at the way it looks. Before it really settles or grows into anything bigger, though, Kuroo sucks in a pound of air and ducks down into the clear pool water, his eyes closed and his face scrunched up to keep air out of his nose. Kenma watches him kick off the wall and shoot out into the deep end, summersaulting under water a few times before resurfacing. He isn’t sure if Kuroo had meant to show off, but regardless, the display impressed him in a bitter sort of way.

                The rest of the day is like any other.

                The following day is not.

                Kenma’s only been at the pool for about half an hour when Kuroo walks over to him. He finds himself shrouded in the shadow that extents out from the soles of Kuroo’s feet, and this time Kuroo just stands there for a moment, waiting to be realized.

                “Hey,” he says, looking down at Kenma.

                “Hey,” Kenma returns. For once, he isn’t particularly worried.

                Kuroo slips his hands in his pockets and his posture looks easy and nonchalant, but there’s a tension to him that betrays it. “Mind if I sit here?” He says, pointing vaguely with his toes. He adds, “I still won’t bug you, it’s just a nice spot to see the whole pool.”

                Kenma looks over his shoulder, never having really thought about what kind of vantage point he might have on his perch. He takes a moment but doesn’t really contemplate anything before saying, “Sure.”

                Kuroo sits down a good foot and a half away from Kenma and leans over himself, elbows propped over his knees and his shoulder blades jutting out grossly. His expression is sharp and focused, and Kenma can see the line of his spine curving out from his neck down. Somewhere in the recesses of his mind, he realizes that that’s the first time he’s ever paid enough attention to someone to notice part of their bone structure. He lays his head down on his arms, and though his eyes are closed, he’s facing Kuroo.

                They stay there for a solid three hours, and they’re both silent from start to end. When Kenma makes to leave, Kuroo offers him a curt smile, and Kenma nods at him. While he walks home, he doesn’t know how he feels.

 

୧ʕ•̀ᴥ•́ʔ୨

 

                From that day on, Kuroo is invariably already sitting at the edge of the pool when Kenma arrives. He’s always in the same spot, about a fourth of the way into the deep end, his feet kicking out in front of him while he leans back on his palms. Kenma comes through the gate and if Kuroo sees him, they nod at each other, and then he strips out of his shirt and wades in to his spot at the edge. They still don’t talk, and Kenma feels strange about it now. It’s like they’re on the precipice of an acquaintanceship, but neither of them want to actually breach it for fear that one step may be one step too close. Kenma certainly isn’t about to make that step; he is both too stubborn and too content to keep things the way they are. Ultimately, this is just the slightest change in the way things have always been, and that’s something Kenma can live with. He might want to live with more, but he isn’t so greedy as to try to take it.

                In the end, neither of them really make the step, though one is taken.

                It’s a day where Kuroo has been poking around on his phone much more than usual, and he’s looking down at it when a young girl swims over towards them. She waits for Kuroo to look at her, and when he does, she says, “Are you friends with that blond boy?” She tips her head toward Kenma, and then looks expectantly back at Kuroo.

                A smirk tightly curls the corners of Kuroo’s mouth and he sets his phone down behind him. He glances over towards Kenma and recognizes that he is very much in earshot of this conversation. He keeps his tone light and returns, “Why do you ask?”

                The girl flounders in the water a little and then tells him, “I’ve never seen someone sit by him before, even though he’s here all the time.”

                Kenma can hear Kuroo laugh openly at that, and with the sound of it still on his breath Kuroo says, “I actually sit with Kenma almost every day. We ride the same train to school. That doesn’t necessarily mean we’re friends, though. It just means we’re sitting together.”

                Kenma’s face contorts in a sort of frown and he aims it at Kuroo darkly, but he is swiftly ignored.

                The girl asserts, “But _I_ wouldn’t sit with someone _I_ wasn’t friends with.”

                Kuroo laughs again, and it makes Kenma’s stomach swirl around.

                “That’s not very nice of you,” Kuroo says. “If you only sit with people you already know, how do you make new friends?”

                The girl has to consider this, and concludes, “I dunno. Clubs and stuff, at school, I guess.”

                Kuroo tells her, “Well, you should be more open to meeting new people,” and she gives a noncommittal answer before swimming off towards her friends, who were apparently waiting in the shallow end. Kuroo watches her go, scratching at his hair with a strange smile pulling on his face.

                Kenma stews in his frown for a minute, and then frustratedly asks, “Why did you lie to her?”

                The smile that Kuroo had been caught up in freezes on his face and starts to melt away into some kind of confusion, and he blurts out a curt, “What?”

                Kenma huffs at him and centers his chin over his arms, looking out at the fence that encompasses the pool deck. “We don’t ride any train together,” he asserts, adding, “She probably thinks were classmates or something now, you shouldn’t have lied.”

                Kenma looks back over to him and sees his eyebrows shoot up behind his bangs. The confusion that had tinged Kuroo’s expression morphs into some kind of amused shock, and he looks weirdly happy to be so genuinely bewildered. “Are you…is that a joke?” he asks, a disbelieving laugh stuck in his throat. “We’ve been riding the same train since middle school. You go to Nekoma, don’t you? I’m just a year above you. I’ve literally sat next to you, you’re always playing some new video game.”

                Kenma lets his eyebrows crinkle together as he takes that in and tries to somehow verify it with his own memories, but he’s at a loss. He can’t pull anything concrete out of something so nondescript as his morning commute; he can hardly remember what his train looks like, to be honest. He’s just never bothered to pay any attention. He keeps thinking for a moment, though, and there’s a tug of sorts—a recognition way down in the back of his head. The feeling has since faded, but when he first met Kuroo, Kenma couldn’t shake the idea that he’d seen him somewhere—just the slightest, vaguest recognition that couldn’t be placed. It felt like he’d met Kuroo once, but never caught his name, and then promptly forgot about him.

                Eventually he says, “I…don’t think I’ve ever noticed you. You did seem familiar when we first met, though.”

                There’s a tangible pain in Kuroo’s chest at those words, and he legitimately feels winded from the hit, breath stuck uncomfortably in his throat. Everything Kenma does affects him but this—he feels like he’s dying, he can’t even process his own thoughts, his chest just _hurts_ so _bad._ Kenma sees him deflate and is instantly distressed to have said something that would cause such a collapse, but he’s far from knowing what to do about it. Kuroo sees the reaction cross Kenma’s face and puts a hand in his own hair, trying to look sheepish while he collects himself, trying to look anything other than _absolutely crushed_. Once he can take in breath again, he titters, “I live in this neighborhood too, you know. Honestly I’m surprised that we’ve never seen each other while walking _to_ the train.”

                Kenma ignores that, and says, “We even went to the same middle school? How long have you lived here?”

                The ache in Kuroo’s sternum throbs and he wants to go home. He thinks about Kenma’s question for a moment, and though his voice has developed a slight waver, he tells him, “It’s been a while. I was probably six or seven, I think. I just remember I’d already started school and had to move halfway through the year.”

                Kenma lets his mouth fall open a little and he makes a long noise of understanding, says, “I think I just remembered something.” He’s not really looking at Kuroo, but his expression has sharpened into something vaguely determined. “When I was a kid someone my age moved in across the street and my parents tried to get me to visit, but I caught the flu and we never ended up meeting.”

                The pain Kuroo feels lets up a little bit and his face softens into almost-a-smile. He drops his hand from his hair and says, “I think that was me. My parents talked to a bunch of people in the neighborhood right away. They said there was only one other kid my age, but we never met.”

                Kenma frowns, and that makes Kuroo frown, and he says, “I feel like I remember his name, though. It was…like…Tetsuo, or Tarō. Something like that.”

                There’s a very strange silence between them and Kenma can’t read Kuroo’s expression. It’s not unhappy, but it doesn’t really look like anything else, either. It’s serious, almost. Sobered.

                After a moment, he says, “Tetsurō. My name’s Tetsurō.”

                Kenma looks up at him and he doesn’t know what to think. It feels like they’ve just discovered wasted potential, a whole world of what-could-have-been, and neither of them know what to do with it.

                Still straight faced, Kenma says, “I threw up for like two days straight.”

                Kuroo lets the corner of his mouth poke up, and he says, “So did I. Half the neighborhood caught it. My mom said it was like a record year for influenza cases.”

                Kenma makes a noise, and their conversation fizzles out for a while. Kuroo goes back to poking at his phone, holding it in one hand while he leans back on the other, the tendons in his arm defined by the strain of his weight. The sun has reached its peak in the sky at this point, and though the day overall has been cooler than average, they’re both starting to feel the heat. Kenma leans back a little and slips deeper in the water, letting his chin rest on the solid concrete, his hands folded in front of it. Kuroo stops kicking his legs and makes a disgruntled noise after a good ten minutes, and Kenma looks up at him.

                “Looks like I’ll be out of a job pretty soon,” He says, laying his phone next to him and leaning back on both hands. He sighs deep and disappointed. “Sarukui’s off his crutches, it sounds like he’ll be well enough to come back in the next few days.”

                “Oh.”

                Kenma doesn’t really know what else to say. He doesn’t really know how he feels about that, if he’s being honest. Deep in his brain he can feel the inkling of disappointment.

                To fill the silence, he asks, “What did he even do to injure himself? He didn’t break a bone, did he?”

                Kuroo brings a hand to the back of his neck and he’s a little quieter when he says, “He tore a ligament playing volleyball. He’s on Fukurodani’s team, and those guys can push themselves pretty hard sometimes. It happened during a practice match, but I wasn’t there so I’m not really sure what the details are. I just know it was bad.”

                “Huh.”

                Kuroo forces his smile back onto his face and points at himself, saying, “I play volleyball too, you know. I’m our team’s captain.”

                Kenma raises an eyebrow and dryly says, “Don’t strain yourself. I don’t think I could handle meeting another new lifeguard.”

                A genuine laugh tumbles out of Kuroo, and his smile is radiant under it. He bashfully pulls a hand up to his brow while laughs keep bubbling up from his lungs, and Kenma stares at him. Pulling air in through his nose, Kuroo wheezes, “Ah, sorry, I wasn’t expecting that. I didn’t mean to laugh so hard, it just—sounded so sarcastically insulting, it was…really funny coming out of your mouth. Sorry.”

                Kenma lets a smile form under his crinkled eyebrows and he mumbles, “Glad you enjoyed it. I’m full of ‘em.”

                There’s a little gap in their conversation as Kuroo gets a hold of himself and as the sun beats down on them, and Kenma pulls himself back up a bit so that he can pillow the side of his face in the crook of his arm. While he does, Kuroo brings his legs up out of the water and folds them under himself, curling himself inward so that his elbow can rest on his knee and his chin in his hand. His expression has darkened a little, and though his face still seems soft, there’s no semblance of the amusement it had held a moment ago.

                Taking in a breath, he murmurs, “Sorry I didn’t leave you alone today. That wasn’t my intention.”

                Kenma’s caught off guard by that, and can only mumble, “Oh…that’s okay.” He takes in a breath and sits up a little straighter and then quietly says, “I think we might be past that, anyway. You seem okay to me.”

                Kuroo’s heart swells immediately, and his face has probably gone red, and he’s definitely holding his breath. All he says is, “Really?”

                Kenma lets himself smile a little, too, and returns a simple, “Yeah.”

                “Oh, well. I’m glad you think so.” Kuroo laughs a little depreciatively and adds, “Glad we got past that now that I’m basically out of the job.”

                Kenma raises a brow. “What, and that’s to say I’ll never see you again? Apparently we ride the train together every day.”

                Kuroo’s laugh is still bitter when he says, “It’s summer break, Kenma. It’ll be a while before I ride the blue route to Nekoma with you again.”

                Kenma turns toward Kuroo and copies his posture best he can, leaning his head into his hand. “I can give you my phone number,” he offers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (the heatwave ends next chapter thank god)


	4. Ankle Deep

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the entire first paragraph focuses on kenma having a bit of a panic attack, just to warn you.
> 
> Additionally, sorry for the wait! I ended up cutting the chapter by about two thirds so that I could post it sooner rather than later. And also because if I hadn't this chapter would have been ridiculous in length and content.

                Kenma, immediately, bites his tongue and chokes on his breath. _Why did he say that? WHY did he say that?_ He’s strangled by fear and it hits him so fast he can’t do anything about it, can’t do anything to keep it at bay, just has to _feel it._ His face was already hot but now it surges with blood, pink and steaming, and he gnashes his teeth together so harshly he’s sure Kuroo sees his jaw working. He pulls long breaths in through his nose, forcing breath in, forcing the blinking of his eyes to be slow and normal, forcing himself to ignore the fact that it feels a bit like he’s _dying,_ having a _heart attack,_ losing _control of everything_. He ignores the way his heart has clogged up his throat, the way his hands tingle from the rush of too much oxygen, the way his brain feels like its pressing against the confines of his skull.  He grabs at the edge of the pool with his free hand, using every bit of strength in his arm to push against the concrete, to combat the tremor that’s developed there, to do something to keep his mind from reeling. It works well enough, Kenma tells himself.

                Kuroo blinks at him, tries to pretend he doesn’t notice that something has just shifted negatively in Kenma’s demeanor, scratches at his neck. The soaring hope that’d jabbed him in the chest as soon as he’d heard Kenma’s offer has started to sour, started to turn to a sense of dread and paranoia. He’s starting to feel like he did when they first met—like he’s _hurting_ Kenma, and like he’s _terrible_ for doing that. “You…you sure?” He asks, his own voice a bit unsteady. His heart has swelled and he wants so badly for Kenma to say _yes I’m sure, yes, I meant that when I said it,_ but looking at the boy now he has his doubts.

                Kenma takes in a breath and while it fill his lungs to capacity he lets Kuroo’s question summersault around the forefront of his head. He’s absolutely _not sure at all_ —if he was he wouldn’t be fighting the urge to hyperventilate—but there’s still a sense of _I meant it_ floating around in his subconscious. Something about the way his offer just…fell out of his mouth…it makes him _feel_ like he really, really did mean it. They say to trust your gut instincts, after all, and giving Kuroo his phone number was an offer he just about vomited out with no respect for logic or reasoning. He tells himself that that is an okay thing, that letting people in and trying to have friends is an okay thing, but he isn’t sure about it. He tries to convince himself that it’s alright. The fear gripping him by the neck argues that it isn’t.

                With the breath he’d stored up, Kenma deadpans, “You’re sure you want me to second guess that?”

                Kuroo’s reaction is mixed in a way that actually eases Kenma’s anxiety somewhat, though he’s far from sure why it has that effect. There was, initially, a spark of laughter in Kuroo’s eyes, the flicker of a smile clicking in his cheeks, but it’s snuffed out by a doubtful scrunch of his eyebrows. He looks kind of timid with a look of twisted doubt marring his happiness, and it’s plain to see that he can’t decide what emotion to let sit on his face. They all sort of twist together, and the unsureness makes Kenma feel a little less alone.

                Wordlessly, his face having settled on an expression only a step away from a smirk, Kuroo twists around and hands Kenma a towel while he slides his thumb over his phone. He presents it to Kenma once the new contact screen has been pulled up.        

                Kenma’s hands still have something of a tremor running through them and he tries to hide it while he fumbles around the phone’s keyboard. The phone is one of those nicer flip phones with a wide screen and square buttons, and Kenma’s actually incredibly practiced at using these, but his fingers aren’t really doing what he needs them to, and he has to type his name out three times before he manages to get it all right. He feeds it his number quickly, saves the contact, and forces it shut before thrusting it back into Kuroo’s possession. His heart is filling his ears and he hates it, so he mumbles, “Just text me for your number. I’m gonna head home.”

                Kuroo looks at him and he’s not particularly unsure anymore, not flipping between remorse and satisfaction anymore; he just looks calm—solemn, really. It’s like an understanding has settled over him, or maybe an acceptance, and the look lets Kenma take in a normal breath of air. It’s like a reassurance, to see that look on Kuroo’s face. It’s much nicer than anything else Kenma’s seen on his face.

                Still collected, Kuroo evenly says, “Okay. Thanks for this. I’ll see you around, yeah?” He lets the idea of a smile settle over his face, allows a softness to break up his expression, and it bleeds over onto Kenma pleasantly.

                His jaw a bit looser, his shoulders infinitesimally less tense, Kenma nods at him and hoists himself up over the edge so that he can collect his shirt and go home.

                He feels kind of awful while he walks, his knees creaking and the sun still beating down. He’s not particularly afraid, anymore, but he feels _bad_. It’s a sort of feeling that he’s used to, actually; it always settles into his chest after spells of fear like that, always settles into him once his heart has stopped its shouting and his lungs have stopped their burning. He’s drained, has used up all of his energy, all of his control, can’t take in anymore stimulus. His head is bogged down and the heat makes it feel like it’s full of soggy cotton. There’s a headache pressing at the sides of his skull and a sort of weakness pulling on the muscles of his arms and legs, and his shoulders and abdomen feel taught, and he wants to go to sleep, but he knows it’s too hot for that. He’ll just end up lying in bed, still feeling awful, still just wanting to sleep.

                He comes home to an empty house, a note from his parents, and a text presumably from Kuroo.

                The note says: _gone to the store, will be back before dark._ _♥♥_ _Your mother and father_

The text message says:

                Incoming message from: (755) 891 5553

                Call – message options – add contact

                >>Tetsuro Kuroo, reporting in.

 

                Kenma swipes the note into the trash can and types out a quick _thanks_ to Kuroo before trudging over to his bedroom and collapsing onto his bed.

ʕ； •`ᴥ•´ʔ          

                Over the course of a few days, Kenma and Kuroo succeed in developing a healthy texting relationship. They don’t talk every day, but when they do they both enjoy it and it isn’t particularly forced or awkward. Kenma revels in it, because that’s not a sort of friendship he’s ever had before, and Kuroo revels in it, because it’s beginning to feel like Kenma might not actually hate him. The weather has started to cool, and Kenma has ceased his daily visits to the pool, and that actually leads to them talking more than they had ever before. When he doesn’t show up, Kuroo will text him and tell him the kind of people that are hanging around, tell him about it when anything out of the ordinary happens, tell him about it when he’s bored out of his skull and dying of sunburn. When he does show up, they’ll have quiet conversations and comfortable spans of silence. There was a day Kenma didn’t come that a kid got shoved into the deep end and Kuroo had to dive in and shepherd him back out to the stairs, and when he gallantly told Kenma about the experience, Kenma laughed at him for having _actually done his job for once._

                They were having fun, together. Talking, joking, sharing parts of their day.

                They were beginning to be actual friends.

                Though it had been starting to get cooler, the heatwave doesn’t actually end until a week or so after their monumental number exchange; each day had still been presenting weather about 90 if not above, and it isn’t until the rainstorm of a century hits them that it is officially declared _over._ There is a blessed twenty or so degree drop in weather that is impossible to not notice, and an array of people rush to experience it outside in parks and yards and neighborhood sidewalks. Just as they do, a downpour soaks the world to the bone. It isn’t literally the storm of the century—while the heatwave may have been record breaking, Tokyo is very versed in the world of _bad storms,_ and not just _any rainstorm_ can top its worst—but it is rampant enough that everyone rushes back inside and children are scorned that they will catch cold or blow away or face some other danger. Most neighborhoods lose power, most businesses close shop, and most people keep to themselves. Kenma’s parents laugh that they are lucky to have already gotten their day’s groceries. Kuroo’s parents worry that the hospitals will fill from car wrecks.

                A bit into the evening, before its quite dark, Kenma and Kuroo’s neighborhood loses power, and if you’d been standing at a window you could see each house blink out like a row of unplugged fairy lights. Immediately, Kuroo texts Kenma, and Kenma’s father comes clomping down the stairs.

                The text says:

                Incoming message from: Kuroo

                (755) 891 5553 – call – message options

                >>well this blows. literally and figuratively

 

                His father says, “Guess I’ll go set up the generator. It’ll run through the kitchen and half of the living room, so you might have to move base.”

                Kenma nods at his father and reclines back on the couch, an arm wrapped around his head, the other propped against his side with his phone in hand. He tells Kuroo, >>we have a generator.

                Kuroo’s response is quick and curt. >>lcuky

                Kenma smirks at the screen and tells him, >>nice typo

                The whirr of the generator sparks up from the garage, more white noise to feed into the pounding of rain, and a few lights blip back on. Dad comes back in a second later, tells Kenma, “I’ll have to do my work in the kitchen, so I’ll be down in a moment with all of my stuff. Just ignore me and play your games.”

                Kenma asks him, “Do you have much more to do today?”

                “A couple hours, probably.”

                Kenma nods at him, says, “I’ll put some coffee on.” His father nods at him and climbs the stairs.

                A while later, Kuroo texts him, says, >> my batterys low so I probably wont be able to talk the rest of the night.

                Kenma’s quick to respond with a blank >>ok, but keeps thinking about the message for quite a while after that. He lays on the couch, staring at it, his brain working in circles. He lets it run around like that for a while, then rolls off the couch and goes to the kitchen.

                He asks his dad, “What would you say if I wanted to have a friend over?”

                His father stares at him. Kenma can see him trying to understand that question, trying to grasp how much of it is literal, trying to grasp just _where_ it came from. Eventually, he says, “I don’t want anyone driving or taking a train in this weather.”

                Quickly, Kenma reports, “He lives across the street.”

                There’s a second of hesitation—it seems his father is literally taken aback—and then he quips, “Ask your mother.”

                Kenma understands this to be very close to a yes, so before he tromps upstairs for his final answer he texts Kuroo and says, >>if you don’t mind walking in the rain you can come over and use our power

                He’s up the stairs and in the doorway of his parents’ office when Kuroo responds.

                Incoming message from: Kuroo

                (755) 891 5553 – call – message options

                >>seriously?

 

                Kenma answers him affirmatively, leaning against the doorjamb, and seconds later Kuroo says >>Parents will only let me if I stay the night.

                There’s an openness to the way that message is composed that Kenma appreciates; Kuroo has neither accepted or denied the offer, and instead left it to Kenma to decide if this means it’s a yes or a no. He likes having that control. He looks up towards his mother, who is sitting in swivel chair reading a heavy novel against the dim light of portable lamp, and he says, "Can I have someone over?”

                She’s immediately just as confused as his father had been, and then, a tick of time passing before her lips part, she says, “Not if they have to take a car or train.”

                Face blank, Kenma tells her, “He lives across the street. You remember the Kuroo family that moved in like ten years ago? I met their son at the pool, we’re friends now. He doesn’t have any power so I said he could come use ours.”

                His mother lights up with memory and she says, “Oh, that Testuo boy? I suppose if he wants to walk over that’s fine, but he’ll have to stay until the storm passes. I won’t have him try to get home in the dark in this weather.”

                Kenma nods at her and then swipes out his phone, tells Kuroo, >>that’s fine. We have a futon.

                While his phone is still in his hand it buzzes, and a text from Kuroo pops up that says, >>be there in 5

                Kenma nods at it and says, “He’ll be over soon, then. And his name’s Tetsurō, actually.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That was.....kind of uneventful, wasn't it. I'm sorry orz  
> next chapter is going to focus on kuroo for a change! wish me luck writing it........


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